The Little Alien Painter

One night a tiny silver ship lands in a garden, and out steps Zuri, a little alien with lavender skin, silver freckles and two amber-glowing antennae. Zuri has come to paint, carrying a belt of floating paint pots and a smock covered in splashes. In the morning Maya, a cheerful girl with curly hair in two puffy buns, finds the alien's footprints and follows them to the garden wall. She is soon joined by Leo, a small, quick boy in a backwards red cap who trips over a paint pot and lands in a pile of leaves. Together they discover that Zuri's colors are unlike anything on Earth: one shimmers like moonlight on water, and some seem to hum and float in the air.

The wall belongs to Nana Rosa, a kind neighbor with a neat silver bun, who brings out lemonade and gives the children permission to paint. She believes a wall should tell a story, and so the great painting begins. Maya paints a bright yellow sun, Leo mixes a wobbly purple river and a wonky rocket that keeps tipping sideways, and Zuri adds swirls of star-shine color that change as you look at them. Other children join in with brushes, buckets and big ideas, and Zuri teaches them how to blend a little alien glow into ordinary green. The finished mural looks, as Maya says, like two worlds hugging. This warm tale by Yavuz DEMİRKIRAN can be read on Online Masal.